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2006 Lanzendorf PaleoArt Prize Winners

Two Dimensional Art — Mark Fordham

Photo courtesy of Mark Fordham.

After years of showing in galleries and museums as a realist artist in the fine art world (chronicled in an in-depth interview in American Artist Magazine 1991), Mark Fordham entered the visual effects world when “Jurassic Park” created a computer revolution in Hollywood. In the last 10 years, he has garnered an Emmy nomination, 3 Gemini nominations, 1 Gemini win and a nomination from the Visual Effects Society for matte-painting.

Two years ago, Mark and his wife, Dianne, created Matte FX Inc., a company that has been specializing in documentaries and films with an emphasis on the prehistoric. Last year, Matte FX completed visual effects art direction on National Geographic’s “Sky Monsters”, as well as creating images of prehistoric sea creatures for the magazine’s 2005 article entitled “Sea Monsters”. Matte FX is currently involved with a documentary on the ages of Earth in conjunction with the renowned Meteor Studios.

Mark also accepts many private commissions to create paintings and sculptures of animals in the more traditional mediums of bronze and oil painting. His works can be found in private and public collections throughout Canada and the United States.

He is currently in the stages of a museum show in Canada where he hopes to merge fine art, visual effects and paleoart in a show creating landscapes of the prehistoric worlds in digital matte painting.

Three Dimensional Art — Michael Anderson

Photo courtesy of Michael Anderson.

Right out of art school, Michael Anderson took a job in the Vertebrate Paleontology Department at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City. Not even sure what vertebrate paleontology meant, he was put to work reconstructing the skeleton of Meiolania, a horned turtle from the Cretaceous. This, and other work at the museum, kindled an interest in anatomy. After completing a medical illustration program in Chicago, where he learned medical modelmaking, maxillofacial prosthetics, and facial reconstruction, Michael became a preparator at the Peabody Museum of Natural History at Yale. At the Peabody Museum, he has produced an oversized Luna moth, the prehistoric giant dragonfly Meganueropsis, and facial reconstructions of Neanderthal and Australopithecus.

The Torosaurus statue was a collaborative project with many other talented artists and paleontologists. The artist would like to thank all those who helped in its making.

Scientific Illustration — Mauricio Antón

Photo courtesy of Mauricio Antón.

Mauricio Antón has been a full-time paleo-artist since 1987. His career was launched when he painted a series of murals depicting life in the Tertiary for the Sabadell Museum in Spain. Since then, he has created artwork for museum exhibits worldwide, including The Museo de Ciencias Naturales de Madrid, the Florida Museum of Natural History or the American Museum of Natural History . He has co-authored and illustrated numerous books, including “The Big Cats and Their Fossils Relatives”, “Mammoths, Sabertooths, and Hominids” and “Evolving Eden”. He has illustrated and authored many popular articles, and collaborated with the BBC and Discovery Channel in developing documentary films including “Wild New World”, “Sabretooth” and “Walking with Beasts”. Mauricio’s artwork is inseparable from his research on the anatomy of fossil vertebrates, which has been published in academic journals including the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology, the Journal of Human Evolution and the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Most recently, Mauricio is exploring the applications of computer graphic imaging and animation to paleoart. He collaborates regularly with leading paleontologists, studies collections all over the world, participates in excavations, and travels to pristine habitats in search of information and inspiration.